The subject matter herein relates generally to electrical connectors, and more particularly, to electrical connectors having ground clips.
In computer and other applications, it is commonly necessary to form a plurality of electrical connections between two printed circuit boards. These connections can be achieved through an interface between an edge of one printed circuit board and an electrical connector mounted on the other printed circuit board. Each application requires a certain orientation of the boards relative to each other. For example, the application may require that the boards be positioned perpendicular to each other. Other applications may require the boards to be positioned parallel to each other.
One way to achieve a parallel interface is to mount a right angle electrical connector on a printed circuit board which receives the edge of the other board. The right angle electrical connectors typically include a housing with contacts arranged in rows to engage a printed circuit board. The housing supports the contacts in a right angle orientation. The contacts typically comprise signal contacts arranged in pairs isolated from other pans of signal contacts by ground contacts in order to minimize crosstalk between the pairs. However, known electrical connectors are not without disadvantages. For instance, while the ground contacts do isolate signal pairs, the length of the ground contacts between the interfaces between the two circuit boards leads to resonances due to a standing wave created at ends of the ground contacts. The resonance noise can couple to signal pairs to degrade the signal performance.
A need remains for an electrical connector that provides signal pair isolation and that removes resonances that degrade signal performance.